Still follow sense, of ev'ry art the soul, Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole; Spontaneous beauties all around advance, Start ev'n from difficulty, strike from chance: Nature shall join you; time shall make it grow, A work to wonder at-perhaps a Stow. Without it, proud Versailles! thy glory falls, And Nero's terraces desert their walls;
The vast parterres a thousand hands shall make,
Lo! Cobham comes and floats them with a lake:
Or cut wide views through mountains to the plain,
You'll wish your hill or shelter'd seat again. 76
Ev'n in an ornament its place remark,
Nor in an hermitage set Dr. Clarke.
Behold Villario's ten years' toil complete,
His quincunx darkens, his espaliers meet,
The wood supports the plain, the parts unite,
And strength of shade contends with strength of
A waving glow the bloomy beds display,
Blushing in bright diversities of day,
With silver quiv'ring rills meander'd o'er-
Enjoy them you! Villario can no more:
Fir'd of the scene parterres and fountains yield,
He finds at last he better likes a field.
Through his young woods how pleas'd Sabinus
stray'd,
Or sat delighted in the thick'ning shade,
With annual joy the redd'ning shoots to greet,
Or see the stretching branches long to meet!
His son's fine taste an op'ner vista loves,
Foe to the Dryads of his father's groves;
One boundless green or flourish'd carpet views, 95
With all the mournful family of yews ;
The thriving plants ignoble broomsticks made,
Now sweep those alleys they were born to shade.
At Timon's villa let us pass a day,
Where all cry out, 'What sums are thrown away?'
So proud, so grand; of that stupendous air,
Soft and agreeable come never there.
Greatness with Timon dwells in such a draught,
As brings all Brobdingnag before your thought.
To compass this, his building is a town,
His pond an ocean, his parterre a down:
Who but must laugh the master when he sees,
A puny insect shiv'ring at a breeze!
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!
The whole a labor'd quarry above ground.
Two Cupids squirt before; a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the northern winds.
His gardens next your admiration call;
side you look, behold the wall!
No pleasing intricacies intervene,
No artful wildness to perplex the scene;
Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.
The suff'ring eye inverted Nature sees,
Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees;
With here a fountain never to be play'd,
And there a summer-house that knows no shade;
Here Amphitritè sails through myrtle bow'rs,
There gladiators fight, or die in flow'rs;
Unwater'd see the drooping sea-horse mourn, 125
And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn.
My lord advances with majestic mien, Smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen: But soft-by regular approach-not yetFirst through the length of yon hot terrace sweat; And when up ten steep slopes you've dragg'd your thighs,
Just at his study door he'll bless your eyes.
His study with what authors is it stor❜d? In books, not authors, curious is my Lord; To all their dated backs he turns you round; 135 These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound! Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good, For all his Lordship knows, but they are wood! For Locke or Milton 'tis in vain to look; These shelves admit not any modern book. And now the chapel's silver bell you hear, That summons you to all the pride of pray'r : Light quirks of music, broken and unev'n, Make the soul dance upon a jig to heav'n. On painted cielings you devoutly stare, Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre, Or gilded clouds in fair expansion lie, And bring all Paradise before your eye. To rest the cushion and soft Dean invite, Who never mentions hell to ears polite.
But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call;
A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall:
The rich buffet well-color'd serpents grace,
And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face,
Is this a dinner? this a genial room?
No, it's a temple, and a hecatomb;
A solemn sacrifice perform'd in state,
You drink by measure, and to minutes eat.
So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear
Sancho's dread Doctor and his wand were there.
Between each act the trembling salvers ring, 161
From Soup to sweet wine, and God bless the King.
In plenty starving tantaliz'd in state,
And complaisantly help'd to all I hate,
Treated, caress'd, and tir'd, I take my leave, 165
Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve;
I curse such lavish cost and little skill,
And swear no day was ever past so ill.
Yet hence the poor are cloth'd, the hungry fed;
Health to: himself and to his infants bred
The lab'rer bears; what his hard heart denies
His charitable vanity supplies.
Another age shall see the golden ear
Imbrown the slope, and not on the parterre.
Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd, 175
And laughing Ceres reassume the land.
Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil?
Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like
Boyle ?
'Tis use alone that sanctifies expense,
And splendor borrows all her rays from sense. 180
His father's acres who enjoys in peace,
Or makes his neighbors glad if he increase;
Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil,
Yet to their lord owe more than to the soil;
Whose ample lawns are not asham'd to feed 185
The milky heifer and deserving steed:
Whose rising forests not for pride or show,
But future buildings, future navies grow;
Let his plantations stretch from down to down,
First shade a country, and then raise a town. 190
You, too, proceed! make falling arts your care,
Erect new wonders, and the old repair ;
Jones and Palladio to themselves restore,
And be whate'er Vitruvius was before:
Till kings call forth th' ideas of your mind,
(Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd)
Bid harbors open, public ways extend,
Bid temples worthier of the God ascend;
Bid the broad arch the dang'rous flood contain,
The mole projected break the roaring main; 200
Back to his bounds this subject sea command,
And roll obedient rivers through the land:
These honors Peace to happy Britain brings;
These are imperial works, and worthy kings. 204
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